Saima Khan. Predictors of Fashion Clothing Involvement amongst Indian Youth

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1 Saima Khan Aligarh Muslim University, India Predictors of Fashion Clothing Involvement amongst Indian Youth Abstract: This study aims to ascertain the motivators for fashion clothing consumptions amongst Indian Youth. The interrelationship between Product Involvement, Purchase Decision Involvement, Advertising Involvement and Consumption Involvement is investigated. A sample size of 150 consisting of college going students of Aligarh aged between (18-26) yrs and the consumption pattern of males and females in specific was also analyzed. It was found that Consumption Involvement has a high correlation with Product Involvement, Purchase Decision Involvement and Advertising Involvement. Although there is no significant difference in the involvement of males and females towards fashion clothing but Product Involvement and Purchase Decision Involvement has more impact on Males and Consumption Involvement and Advertising Involvement has more impact on s. The research indicates that there is a growing market for fashion products in India and the manufacturers of fashion wear may consider this as a major opportunity for their products in the country. Keywords: Advertising Involvement, Consumption Involvement, Product Involvement, Purchase Decision Involvement. 1. Introduction Fashion is a general term for a popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. It refers to current trends in look and dress up of a person, as well as to prevailing styles in behavior. Fashions and clothing are constantly changing and may differ from country to country, depending on various factors including age, geography, and climate. In recent years, consumers in developing countries have attracted much attention from marketers. Brand awareness and realization about the self have gained importance among consumers. Clothing is one domain that is supposed to fulfill both functional and symbolic needs of the consumers. Growing consciousness about the self and the role of brands in enhancing the consumers image are being recognized in developing countries. In India, liberalization has not only brought western brands amongst the Indian consumers, but has also introduced more of a western wear and lifestyle. India has a rich and varied textile heritage, where each region of India has its own unique native costume and traditional attire. While traditional clothes are still worn in most of rural India, urban India is changing rapidly, with international fashion trends reflected by the young and glamorous, in the cosmopolitan metros of India. Fashion in India is a vibrant scene, a nascent industry and a colorful and glamorous world where designers and models start new trends every day. The research attempts to understand the Indian youth s involvement with fashion clothing and its implications to marketers. The branded clothing manufacturers are establishing apparel stores in India, and fashion involvement of youth with branded clothes would open marketing opportunities 70

2 to them states: Fashion may be conceptualized both as an object and as a behavioral process. Clothing helps in enhancing the self-image of the individuals, and for the Indian youth it may signify global values and lifestyle. Clothing serves to help individuals with low self-esteem adapt in the social setting and for those with high self-esteem it acts as an expressive function. Fashion products are positioned to improve the social image of the consumers. Fashion involvement is based upon behavioral activities and perceived personal interest of the individuals. Fashions are supposed to communicate the values of the society and the involvement of the consumers in their clothes provides a deeper understanding of the consumer behavior and consumption predispositions. The scale in the research has constructs related to four factors which are consumption involvement, product involvement, advertising involvement and purchase decision involvement. Research findings show a high correlation of consumption involvement with the other three involvement dimensions. 2. Theoretical Background Involvement research has often focused on pre-purchase settings in the context of decision making and advertising, with little attention being given to the construct as it affects consumer behaviour on an enduring basis (Bloch, 1983; Mittal & Lee, 1989). Involvement is often couched in terms of prepurchase search activities, information processing, and the hierarchy-of- effects, attribute evaluation, and perception of brand differences. (Rothschild,1984). These pre-purchase and information processing approaches appear insufficient to explain the totality of involvement within a broader context of effects, because they limit involvement to a very narrow context and temporal domain of consumer behaviour. According to (O Cass, 2002) the construct of consumer involvement is important in understanding consumer behaviors related to consumer possessions and there are several broad types of consumer involvement that can be related to the product, to the message, or to the perceiver. Zaichkowsky (1986) identified the antecedents of involvement as a) person factors, b) object or stimulus factors, and c) situational factors. The factors can trigger different types of involvement (product, purchase decision, and advertising) that can produce differing results or consequences of involvement. Previous research has shown several ways in which consumers become involved with products and the effect that product involvement has on various purchasing and consuming behaviors (Mittal & Lee, 1989; Tigert, Ring, & King, 1976). (O Cass, 2001) defined fashion involvement as a consumer s perceived importance of fashion clothing. Goldsmith et al (1999, 2002) studied the real self-image of female fashion leaders and found that leaders have a unique self-image compared to later buyers. The fashion leaders viewed themselves as more comfortable, pleasant, contemporary, formal, colorful, and vain than later adopters. He also examined the personal characteristics of frequent clothing buyers and developed the four psychological constructs a) innovativeness, b) knowledge, c) involvement, d)and opinion leadership and found that they are were also associated with heavy use of clothing purchases. Since the young adults pay more attention to fashion, this age group must figure highly in any study of clothing (Auty & Elliott, 1998). In 1985, Zaichkowsky developed the Personal Involvement Inventory (PII) scale to measure product involvement. Tests of construct validity over three products demonstrated the scores were positively related to perceptions of brand differences, brand preferences, interest in gathering 71

3 information about the product category, and comparison of product attributes among brands (Zaichkowsky, 1985). Figure 1-Conceptual Model Product Involvement Consumption Involvement Purchase Decision Involvement Advertising Involvement 3. Research hypothesis Hypothesis 1a: There will be a relationship between fashion clothing consumption involvement and product involvement. Hypothesis 1b: There will be a relationship between fashion clothing consumption involvement and purchase decision involvement. Hypothesis 1c: There will be a relationship between fashion clothing consumption involvement and advertising involvement. Hypothesis 2: The consumers involvement with fashion clothing, its advertising and purchase decision would affect the consumers decision to purchase fashion clothing. Hypothesis 3: There will be a significant difference between the male and female consumers involvement towards advertising involvement, consumption involvement, purchase decision involvement and product involvement of fashion clothing. Questionnaire: A self-administered questionnaire was used on Indian college students aged between 18 and 26 years studying in colleges in Aligarh. These students were residents of different states from India, who were studying in various intermediate, under graduate and post graduate colleges in Aligarh Sampling procedure: 1. Analytical tool MS Excel and SPSS. 2. Sample size Sampling Unit Colleges of Aligarh 4. Data collected Primary Data in the form of questionnaires and Secondary Data from books, websites of various companies, magazine surveys, annual reports and journals. 72

4 4. Analysis and Interpretation The Cronbach s alpha was computed to test the reliability of the questionnaire. We ascertained the reliability of the items by computing the Cronbach s alpha and the score for the same was.919 for 25 items of fashion involvement scale. The total sample size used for analysis was 150, out of which the total male respondents were79 and female respondents were 71 (Table 1). Table 1 shows the two group means (males and females) in the four variables of fashion clothing involvement. There is variation in the means, with higher mean scores for females than males. The differences in the means on all the four variables appear somewhat different. Table 2 shows the male and female group statistics for each question. Table 1: Group Statistics You are N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean PI Male PDI Male CI Male AI Male Table 2: Male and Group Statistics You are N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Fashion clothing means a Male lot to me Fashion clothing is a Male significant part of my life I have a very strong Male commitment to fashion clothing that would be difficult to break I think about fashion Male clothing a lot For me personally fashion Male

5 clothing is an important product I am very interested in Male fashion clothing I would say fashion Male clothing is central to my identity as a person I would say that I am often Male pre-occupied with fashion clothing I can really identify myself Male with fashion clothing I find fashion clothing a Male very relevant product in my life I pay a lot of attention to Male fashion clothing Making purchase decision Male for fashion clothing is significant to me I think a lot about my Male choices when it comes to fashion clothing I place great value in Male making the right decision when it comes to fashion clothing Purchase decisions for Male fashion clothing are very important to me I like being involved in Male making purchases of fashion clothing The purchase of fashion Male clothing is important to me The feeling of self-male

6 fulfillment I get from wearing fashion clothing is significant I feel a sense of personal Male satisfaction when I wear fashion clothing Wearing fashion clothing Male is one of the most satisfying and enjoyable things I do I like to think about Male wearing fashion clothing I often become pre Male occupied with fashion clothing Wearing fashion clothing Male is important to me Ads about fashion clothing Male are no concern to me Ads about fashion clothing Male are relevant to me The 41-item scale was factor analyzed using the principle component method with Varimax rotation of factors. Initial extraction of components gave us seven components, and items with factor loading less than 0.5 were removed and the remaining items were again analyzed through the principle component method. We obtained a final component matrix comprising of 25 constructs segregated under two components. Seven constructs removed from the scale. To understand the relationship between fashion clothing product involvement, purchase decision involvement and advertising involvement with consumption involvement correlation was computed. The consumption involvement attribute was kept as the dependent variable. We intended to study the impact of consumers consumption involvement with fashion clothing with respect to other three variables. These three were taken as motivational variables that affected the consumers decision and consumption involvement with fashion clothing. The results in Table 3 demonstrate the involvement relationships of Indian youth with fashion clothing consumption. Hypotheses 1a, 1b and 1c were accepted in the test. 75

7 Table 3: Involvement relationships of Indian youth with fashion clothing consumption Dependent Variable Product involvement Purchase decision involvement Advertising involvement.710 **.688 **.378 ** Consumption involvement ption Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). The correlation score of with product involvement shows that Indian youth gives importance to fashion clothing brands. The high correlation further implies that western fashion brands connote an image of high quality and it holds a relevant place in their life. Our findings are on similar lines with earlier researches on consumer involvement in fashion clothing product category, which posit that consumers show a high involvement in fashion clothing. The Pearson correlation of between purchase decision involvement and consumption involvement shows that the consumption of fashion clothing has a positive relationship with purchase decision involvement. It may be viewed that Indian youth is engrossed and considers fashion clothing to be of significant importance. The findings suggest that if the product is important for the consumer, there will be greater purchase decision involvement experienced by the consumer for that product category. The results of correlation also show a positive relationship of fashion clothing advertisement with consumption involvement. The results are significant at 0.01 levels. The consumers perception about the relevance of fashion clothing may be based upon their evaluation of intrinsic motives and determining the role of fashion clothing in their lifestyle. The findings imply that advertising of fashion brands plays a significant role in determining the consumption involvement of the youth The simultaneous multiple regressions were conducted to investigate the best predictors of fashion clothing consumption involvement (Table 4, 5, 6). The test results of regression analysis demonstrate a high significance of product involvement, purchase decision involvement and advertising involvement of consumers towards consumption of fashion clothing. For product involvement and purchase involvement s impact on consumption involvement, P < and for advertising involvement P = 0.001, which is significant at 0.01 levels. Thus Hypothesis 2 is accepted. This supports our earlier findings that to increase consumers involvement with fashion clothing, the advertising, product and purchase involvement must be looked into. The marketers may formulate strategies to design advertisements that help consumers to associate with the fashion clothing and consider them to be an intrinsic part of their lifestyle. This may help in generating greater degree of product, and purchase decision involvement. The consumers interest towards fashion clothing may be enhanced by positioning it as a product that enhances the self-image of the Indian youth and helps them to establish their membership with their counterparts in other 76

8 developed countries. This would significantly increase their endorsement for it. This is supported by earlier research that suggests that Indians place greater value of global brands. Table 4: Variables Entered Model Variables Entered Method 1 AI, PDI, PI a Enter a. All requested variables entered b. Dependent variable: CI Table 5:Model Summary Mode l R R Square Adjusted R Square Change Statistics Std. Error of ther SquareF Estimate Change Change df1 df2 Sig. Change F a a. Predictors: (Constant), AI, PDI, PI Table 6: ANOVA b Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression a Residual Total a. Predictors: (Constant), AI, PDI, PI b. Dependent Variable: CI Table 7: Coefficients a Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B Std. Error Beta t Sig. 1 (Constant) PI PDI AI a. Dependent Variable: CI 77

9 Our findings support earlier research that consumers involvement with fashion clothing reflects their need to look good as it reflects their status among peer groups. To test whether there was any significant difference between the four variables and gender of the student, ANOVA was computed. The results mentioned in Table 8 show that between groups differences for advertising is significant (P < 0.05), whereas for those of purchase decision involvement, product involvement and consumption involvement is not significant. Hypothesis 3 gets partially accepted where gender affects advertising involvement of Indian youth. The males and females differ in their involvement levels. Our findings support the previous research that men and women differ in their perceptions towards clothing. 80,81 In India it appears, women are more influenced by advertising and this may be attributed to their interest to look at the latest fashion clothing worn by models in advertisements before purchasing it. This can be of immense importance for marketers in creating advertisements specifically targeted to women. The television advertisements of fashion clothing can use the celebrities to target the young women. Table 8: Group differences for advertising involvement, purchase decision involvement, product involvement and consumption involvement. ANOVA Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. PI Between Groups Within Groups Total PDI Between Groups Within Groups Total CI Between Groups Within Groups Total AI Between Groups Within Groups Total Conclusions Research findings suggest that fashion apparel sellers in India can work upon enhancing their brand awareness as the market for the fashion wears, accessories and other products is promising. There is a huge scope for Indian firms to foray into branded apparel category in India at a lower price range, as at present the market is dominated by international labels at higher price. The manufacturers of fashion wear may consider this as a major opportunity for their products in the country. Communication from the global fashion firms should focus more on enabling consumers to 78

10 associate with the fashion brands as a part of their lifestyle. As fashion clothing has a prestige and status value attached to its use and adoption, Indian youth would be willing to wear it for improving their social position. Advertising efforts of the firms should also take into cognizance the material symbol communicated through these products and messages should be framed accordingly. 6. Limitations The study was confined to AMU students. Future researchers can include data from other segments as well; this can make the findings more generalized. Although the number of respondents were significantly fine, yet some part of institution could not be covered owing to non -cooperation and time constraints. Though due care was taken in designing the questionnaire yet as it is based on a research instrument was quite lengthy which led to a decrease in involvement of the respondents. References Auty, S. and Elliot, R. (1998). Fashion involvement, self-monitoring and the Meaning of brands Journal of Product and Brand Management 7 (2). p Bloch, P. H. and Richins, M. L. (1983) A theoretical model for the study of product importance perceptions. Journal of Marketing. 47. p Goldsmith, R., Moore, M. and Beaudoin, P. (1999) Fashion innovativeness and self-concept: A replication. Journal of Product and Brand Management. 8 (1). p Mittal, B. and Lee, M. (1989) A causal model of consumer involvement. Journal of Economic Psychology. 10. p O Cass, A. and Frost, H. (2002) Status brands: Examining the effects of non product-related brand associations on status and conspicuous consumption. The Journal of Product and Brand Management. 11 (2/3). p O Cass, A. and Lim, K. (2001) The influence of brand associations on brand preference and purchase intention: An Asian perspective on brand associations. Journal of International Consumer Marketing. 14 (2/3). p Rothschild, M. L. (1984) Perspective in involvement: Current problems and future directions. Advances in Consumer Research. 11. p Tigert, D. J., Ring, L. J. and King, C. W. (1976) Fashion involvement and buying behavior: A methodological study. In: A review. Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising. 15 (1). p Zaichkowsky, Judith L. (1985) Measuring the Involvement Construct", Journal of Consumer Research, 12(4). p Zaichkowsky, J. (1986) Conceptualizing involvement. Journal of Advertising. 15(2).p